sneak nostalgia attack

Share my nostalgia!

Jon Carroll says it

Jon Carroll, a favorite San Francisco columnist, puts a finger on the issue:
"There are elderly people all over this country dying every day from simple neglect. People just forget about them. Maybe Congress could subpoena them! That way, when they didn't show up, they'd be in contempt of Congress and someone would have to go find them and at least change their sheets and give them some hot broth.
There are children in this country dying every day of preventable diseases. Would George Bush care to fully fund all family clinics, so that a baby would not die simply because it cannot be given antibiotics in time? Would George Bush care to spend as much money fighting HIV-AIDS in the African American community as he does building large bombers? Yeah, I know, it's a tired old liberal argument, and it's been discredited because well, you're gonna have to remind me again why it's been discredited."

Ann Savage!

Last night I went to see Detour, which the Pacific Film Archive was showing as part of an Ulmer retrospective. I actually don't know much about Ulmer and have never seen any of his films, but had a good craving for some noir yesterday, and wow! They couldn't find a decent print of the film for the retrospective, so someone called Ann Savage up, and she agreed to loan them her personal copy, which her husband had bought for her in 1951. The audience was warned about poor quality in parts, but it actually wasn't bad at all. Tom Neal! Ann Savage, wow! She delivered her print in person and was there for the screening. I'm not usually a big autograph hound, but I couldn't resist. I just read about her life a bit; she had it rough, but she's a gorgeous and gracious Old Hollywood Dame, and they don't make them like that anymore.

fun with eight legs

Don't miss the octopus tricks!
"Two tiny species of tropical octopus have demonstrated a remarkable disappearing trick. They adopt a two-armed 'walk' that frees up their remaining six limbs to camouflage them as they slink away from trouble.
"When we noticed one was walking, I thought my gosh, this is amazing. It's the first underwater bipedal locomotion I know of," says Christine Huffard of the University of California, Berkeley, who captured the behaviour on video.
Huffard's team filmed the apple-sized Octopus marginatus in the tropical waters of Indonesia. Instead of its usual sprawling crawl, O. marginatus fled from divers by striding on two arms, with the rest of its arms wrapped around its body, giving it the appearance of a walking coconut."

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Wonderful writing as usual from Dervala:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

dirty tricks

Phoebe Gloeckner shows us a dirty trick.
Someone else showed me this a long time ago- I had one on my fridge- but I'm so glad to see that directions are being provided for future generations.

death by bassett hound

At lunch today I saw a baby bassett hound and nearly died of the cuteness. His ears were almost longer than his widdle legs as he trotted over to me. I leaned down to pet him, and he promptly turned around, lay down on my feet, leaned against my legs, and looked up at me as if to say, "why don't we just snuggle right here, you and me, forever?" he was three months old, and possibly the softest dog I have ever petted. When I walked away, I could feel my heart breaking, just like that, after a one minute courtship.

I've had this cold so long, I suppose it was inevitable: now I'm addicted to cough drops. Well, at least I've switched to the sugar-free kind...

and some fun from McSweeney's:
If Only They Kept Diaries: Roadrunner.